


Asami Alone

by sapphic_thots



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, book 5: yearning, i just love asami ok, i'm going to ramble about her which is also valid, set between books three and four, she's dramatic and that's valid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25392952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphic_thots/pseuds/sapphic_thots
Summary: What Asami's life looked like in those three years that Korra was away, featuring melodramatic visits to the park, the inherent eroticism of letter writing, long drives down Kyoshi Bridge, and Naga, among other things.
Relationships: Korra/Asami Sato
Comments: 19
Kudos: 202





	Asami Alone

_"Are you sure you don't want some company in the Southern Water Tribe? I'm happy to come with you."_

_"No, I appreciate it, but I'll only be gone a couple of weeks. A little time alone will be good for me."_

* * *

_Only a couple of weeks._ For those first few weeks, Asami repeats this in her head like a mantra, a prayer **:** _Only a couple of weeks_. But a couple of weeks becomes a month before she knows it, then two months, three. She blinks. Six months. The winter sets in over Republic City, heavier and darker than she remembers—or has it always been this way?

She writes letters. Meticulously, like an art. She spends no less than an hour in a stationery shop in the Little Ba Sing Se Mall just to pick out a new ink pen and fine parchment—all the paper she has at home has the Future Industries logo embossed in the bottom right corner, she reasons, and she doesn't want her letters to look like company advertisements. 

She's particular about where she writes the letters. The first time, she tries to write it in her study (formerly her father's study—but she was careful to scrub the traces of him out long ago) and finds herself unable to form a sentence, staring at the blank page for what feels like hours, the glistening tip of the pen taunting her. 

After some time she realizes what the problem is, triggered by a raucous laugh that floats up the grand staircase to her. With Mako and Bolin's (extremely) extended family staying in the Sato estate, it dawns on her that her home hasn't felt like her home in a while. If she's honest with herself—and she's honest with herself less and less these days, really—it hasn't felt like home since her mother was alive. 

She would never turn Mako and Bolin's family away, of course, and admittedly, sometimes the company is nice. Grandma Yin checks on her with a maternal flair that Asami didn't know she was missing, in the form of home-brewed tea when Asami works late into the night and doting advice whenever Asami is rushing out of the house, on her way to this or that meeting. The various cousins are always in good spirits (she still doesn't know most of their names, but to be fair, they severely outnumber her). The sprawling mansion is, for the first time in her life, full of people.

But when she sits down and tries to write, tries to probe into her own feelings, the strange new atmosphere of her home stays her hand. After a while she packs her things into a shoulder bag and slips out of the mansion through the service entrance, if only to avoid the awkward small talk she always gets trapped in when she runs into one of Mako and Bolin's more talkative relatives. She makes it to her car undetected. The deep blue paint job shines dully under the watery setting sun. (She thinks about when she showed the new color to Mako, how she turned away when he fixed her with a quizzical look, though she wasn't sure why). 

This time of evening the traffic's mostly died down. She drives aimlessly for a while, though this is by design. Nothing has ever cleared her head like driving, and sure enough, after a few minutes on the road, the odd weight that she had felt on her chest all afternoon begins to dissipate until she feels almost herself again. When she refocuses on her surroundings, she notices that she's ended up in the Little Water Tribe neighborhood of downtown, and actively decides not to dwell on the significance of this. 

She parks outside of Narook's Seaweed Noodlery. Something about it piques her interest—she thinks she remembers Korra telling her a story about Narook's once. Something about Bolin and the most punchable face she'd ever seen. Asami goes inside without thinking twice.

The shop is quiet, warmly lit, and the tea is decent. Tucked into a table in the corner, she feels wonderfully alone and anonymous. This time, when she spreads a sheet of parchment out on the lacquered table and uncaps the pen, the words come easily. 

_Dear Korra, I miss you. Things aren't the same in Republic City without you._

Truer words have never been written.

* * *

The letter ends up being longer than she expects **;** she's a little self-conscious as she jams it into an envelope. But, she reminds herself, it's got quite a bit of news in it, covering everything from her new houseguests to the contract she just signed to revamp the city's infrastructure. Better to be thorough than brief, she thinks. 

And yet, as long as the letter is, she still feels like there's something she isn't saying, something she doesn't have the words for. She reads the finished letter over and over, curling a lock of hair anxiously around her finger before eventually deciding to leave it alone. She'll write more letters, she's sure. Maybe when Korra writes back, she'll know exactly what to say. 

Weeks go by. Korra doesn't write back. Asami's eagerness surprises her, but she finds herself going to the mailbox every morning at the first break of dawn just to see if an envelope with Water Tribe postage is waiting for her. Each morning she's disappointed. Still, she can't help herself from being hopeful every time. 

She has some distractions, at least. Every morning is dreary, but the hustle and bustle of Future Industries is always enough to take her mind off of things. Spring starts to thaw the streets of the city and she throws herself into her work. Things are almost good, if she doesn't think about them too hard. The company is reporting record numbers. Her plans for Central City Station are developing nicely. On the rare occasions when their schedules line up, she and Mako have lunch together. Bolin announces his decision to join Kuvira's stabilization efforts, and they throw him a going-away party at the mansion. Despite herself, she has fun.

She soon learns that distractions are only good for the daytime hours, unfortunately. Every night is the same **;** when she shuts her bedroom door and cuts the lights, she always feels that the silence is deafening, the stillness cloying. She starts having Pabu sleep at the head of the bed just to hear his breathing. Even then, she sleeps terribly, worse than she did when her father's Equalist connections first came to light, when she cried herself to sleep in that little bedroom on Air Temple Island night after night. 

Nowadays she doesn't cry, but she dreams, vividly. Most nights, they're just regurgitated memories, playing out behind her eyes one after another in sickening definition until she gasps herself awake. She dreams about the Misty Palms Oasis, her shaking hands curled around Naga's reins and her arms pinning Korra's limp body close to her chest, begging the polar bear dog to go faster. She dreams about the walls of earth closing around them, the rough hands of the Earth Queen's soldiers dragging them apart, Naga howling as she ran away, Korra in chains. 

Asami dreams about falling out of the sky into a desert that never ends, trying to hold onto anything at all and coming up with nothing but sand. Here is where the dreams become bizarre, horrifying—a slideshow of images in quick succession and terrifying detail. The gaping maw of a sand shark **;** explosions born from a woman's mind **;** an air temple melting off a mountainside.

More than anything, she dreams about Korra **:** the resolute look on her face when she decided to give herself up to the Red Lotus, with a hard set in her jaw that made Asami ache just thinking about it. A goodbye hug, fast but tight. How everything fell apart—how she watched the Avatar unravel, the broken chains on her wrists, her hair undone and wild, her eyes glowing to a frightening degree.

Then, finally, the climax, the part that rips her back awake, holding her chest as if to stop something from falling out. She dreams about Korra collapsing, weak from poison and a gruesome fight, her face frozen in horror as the air leaves her lungs. Zaheer, stone-faced, merciless. Then the aftermath—the way she looked impossibly small and fragile in her father's arms (this, Asami thinks, is her worst memory). The stream of metallic poison bent from her lips, a sickly image. Her body going limp. Asami was almost certain that she was dead.

Just as suddenly she's awake again, Pabu touching her cheek gently with his paw. She rarely goes back to sleep after the dreams play out. It quickly becomes routine for Asami **:** waking in the dead of night and lying there till morning, her head heavy with the combination of sleeplessness and painful recollections. Some nights she gets up before dawn and goes to work because she has nothing else to do **;** some nights she goes to the kitchen and sits alone in front of a cup of tea, and when Grandma Yin shuffles in with the daybreak and finds her, they say nothing.

On the worst nights, the nights where the fear doesn't subside and she can't shake the sour taste of bile from the back of her throat, she slips out and goes for a drive. In the dead of night Republic City feels different to her—a liminal space. She remembers reading about liminal spaces in secondary school (a lifetime ago, she snidely thinks) **:** the space between what was and what's still to be. She's been living in this space for months now.

On those nights she goes down to Kyoshi Bridge and drives the whole length of it, end to end, the wind stinging her eyes as she accelerates a little faster than she should. Most of the time she's the only car in sight, and if she wants to, she can close her eyes for a few seconds and feel the car rumble beneath her and hear the water of Yue Bay roil far below her. Sometimes she does, and it feels like flying. But the bridge always ends. The sun always rises.

* * *

At first, she doesn't realize that nearly a whole year has gone by, not until Mako mentions it. They meet for lunch, an increasingly rare occurrence these days—the infrastructure project is in full swing and she spends more time in her office than out of it now. Mako's new post as bodyguard to the recently-arrived Prince Wu has him busier than being a detective ever did (he says this with his trademark scowl). 

"Can't believe it's almost been a year already." Mako looks older than usual, his strong features thrown into sharp relief by the sunlight coming through Narook's window (Asami's lunchtime suggestion, naturally). "So much has changed." 

"A year since—?" But Asami stops herself. She knows exactly what he means, of course. She'd just been trying not to think about it. "Oh." 

He pushes his noodles around the bottom of the bowl. "Yeah. I don't know, I just... I thought she would have been back by now." 

"Me too." She looks down at the table. She hasn't talked to anyone about Korra in what feels like ages, and now that the opportunity is in front of her, she feels the floodgates opening. There's so much she wants to say, things she hasn't even admitted to herself yet. But she swallows the lump in her throat and forges on. "Has she written to you?" 

"No," he sighs. "You?" 

"No." They're both quiet for a while. "I'm worried about her, Mako." 

"I am, too," he sighs. "But we just have to be patient. She's got the best healers in the world, plus her parents and Naga. I'm sure she'll be fine." 

Asami feels herself worrying her bottom lip—a bad habit from girlhood, which seems to be cropping back up all the time now. "I know that physically she'll be fine. It's just, after everything that happened... I don't know how anyone would be okay after that." 

Mako doesn't say anything, and that's how she knows she's terribly right.

* * *

The one-year anniversary of the Red Lotus attack isn't lost on Republic City's leadership either, she soon discovers. She's working through lunch one afternoon when President Raiko pays her a visit, that perpetual look of irritation etched onto his face. He's here to talk business. 

"The idea is to rename it Avatar Korra Park," he explains. Just hearing her name makes Asami's heart squeeze. "A year has gone by since that awful Red Lotus business, and after all the good the Air Nation has done here in the city, it only seems appropriate to honor the Avatar for saving them." 

Asami's certain that this is all some ploy for political brownie points, but she doesn't have it in her to analyze Raiko's neverending machinations today. "What do you need from me?" 

"Well, a renaming effort won't be complete without a commemorative gesture," he explains. "My advisors discussed it and decided that a statue would be in order. I understand that Future Industries is heavily invested in the infrastructure project right now, but would your engineers be able to lend some hands in that regard? The city's architectural contracts are all working overtime to repair the areas around the spirit vines, so we felt it best to reach out to a private company for this project. Rest assured, Future Industries will be recognized at the renaming ceremony for its contribution." 

She can almost hear her own advisory board in her ear, shouting **:** _Future Industries does_ not _have the time or manpower to take on charity projects for the city right now._ But when she opens her mouth to politely decline, what comes out is, wholeheartedly, "Yes, of course." 

(If she had any sense left at all, she would send the order down to the engineering department and wipe her hands of this. It's not like her world-class designers can't handle throwing together a simple statue. Unfortunately, it turns out that she really doesn't have any sense left after all, because when Raiko leaves she sets aside her work and spends the rest of the day hunched over a scroll of graphite paper, sketching the proportions for the statue in question. It's some of her best work.)

* * *

As it happens, she can't make it to the big reopening ceremony for the freshly-christened Avatar Korra Park—even the CEO can't get out of quarterly board meetings, apparently. In the end, this is for the best.

She goes to the park late that night (the board meeting drags well into the evening, and she's not proud to admit that her mind wanders through most of it). It's mostly empty by the time she arrives. Under the wide summer moon, she can see traces of hundreds of footsteps in the grass, all pointing in the direction of the newly-erected statue looking out over the pond.

Asami takes one look at it and bursts into tears.

* * *

Maybe she's a glutton for pain, but after that night, she goes to the park any chance she can get. Morning walks, lunch breaks, nighttime drives—anything to be close to the statue, even if it haunts her, even if seeing that likeness makes her heart race painfully. 

There's a gorgeous little bench from where she can see both the statue and its reflection in the pond. She takes her break there most days, though she rarely eats (Grandma Yin mentions how thin she looks every time they bump elbows in the manor **;** Asami hollowly assures her each time that she's eating plenty). When she doesn't eat she writes, if only to stop herself from staring uselessly at Korra's stone face. There's a metaphor there, somewhere.

A year now and still no letters from Korra, but Asami can't bring herself to stop, even if she ends up throwing away half of the letters she writes. Sometimes, when she lets her hand wander and her words get away from her, she'll look down at the page and find all manner of strange admissions **:** _I think about you all the time. I'd give anything to hear your voice again. You're in my dreams every night._ These are the letters she throws away.

This goes on for an embarrassingly long period of time before she understands. It's late autumn now **;** she's working late, shut up in her office at the Future Industries building downtown.

Understanding comes in the form of another throw-away letter, scribbled carelessly at her desk. The last line of the page, written so small she can hardly read it **:** _I think I'm in love with you._

She reads it again and almost laughs out loud. Now, finally, seeing it in black ink in her own handwriting, it all makes sense. Of course, she's in love. Of course, of course, of course.

Suddenly, she's gripped by memories of the hard days, the worst days—those first few weeks after the Red Lotus incident, when Korra was nearly despondent with pain. Everything slots into place **:** the way Asami couldn't stand to be more than a room away from her **;** the way she would sleep in the world's most uncomfortable chair because it was at Korra's bedside, and she needed to be there just in case **;** the way she felt her pulse pound in her ears when Korra went away, watching the ship leave for the South and feeling, inexplicably, like she might cry right there on the dock. Oh, it's love. 

It's the most obvious thing in her world right now. She throws the letter away.

* * *

Winter creeps into the city, slow at first, then all at once. Asami finds herself at a ritzy dinner for a visiting diplomat (at the request of her advisory board, of course **;** they always jump at the opportunity for their CEO to rub elbows with Republic City's big-money players). She throws on an evening gown she hasn't touched in two years and sits through the dinner in relative silence, only offering a fake laugh at the unfunny jokes and a chorus of _uh-huhs_ when she gets trapped in conversations with suits. She's in love with her best friend and she's absolutely miserable. 

Just as she's planning her escape, a young man in a tailored waistcoat sidles up to her, swirling his drink in one hand and grinning. He looks like he thinks himself much more attractive than he is. It puts an instant scowl on her face. 

"Miss Sato, I assume?" he asks, extending his hand. "Chan. Pleased to meet you. Your company has been working very closely with my father in the Central City Station project." 

She stares at his outstretched hand until he retracts it, coughing uncomfortably.

"Am I supposed to know who your father is?" she probes, after an extended pause.

"Uh, yes," he says, taken aback as if he's never been asked that question before. "He's the owner of Xiang Steel. Anyway—how's about you and I ditch this boring old dinner and go have some real fun?" 

She just stares at him, dumbfounded by his complete lack of charm and incomprehensible confidence, as a foreign thought flutters uninvited to the front of her mind **:** _I belong to someone else._

"I think I'll be leaving on my own, thanks."

* * *

Sometime that spring her dreams change, though she can't decide if this is for better or worse. The most gruesome memories start to filter out **;** now her dreams are surreal film reels of images, playing out with no real narrative or structure. More often than not it's Korra, in every form that Asami can remember her in. She dreams about a crooked grin and eyes opened wide with concern **;** muscles tensed like they're waiting to deliver a blow, or maybe receive one **;** twin scars on her cheek **;** wrists bound and chained. 

These kinds of dreams don't make her wake up in a cold sweat like the nightmares did. Instead, she shakes out of them slowly, clinging desperately to the numbing space between sleep and waking. It's in that state that she feels close to Korra **;** she doesn't care if it's all in her head. She gets out of bed each day feeling increasingly hollow. 

The weeks drag on. She keeps losing track of time, usually snapped back into reality by a snippy member of the board or a concerned call from Mako. Throwing herself into her work used to be an escape **;** now she can barely focus on the endless schematics that end up on her desk and the infinite infrastructure meetings. 

On her rare off-time, wrapped up in a kind of loneliness that chokes her up if she lets it, she finds herself going to old Team Avatar haunts—anything to feel a shade of the good old days. The waitstaff at Narook's all know her by name now. She sits high up in the bleachers at the Future Industries test track and watches the Satomobiles chase each other around the loop (this makes her remember driving Korra around the track when they first met, the wild look in her eyes and a lopsided smile to match, and after that Asami stops going to the test track). She catches a pro-bending match one night. Alone in the Future Industries box, she makes it through all of one round before she notices that the Capital City Cat Gators' waterbender looks a lot like Korra, down to the ponytail and punchy play style. When the bell rings for round two she gets up and leaves.

* * *

Before she knows it, the two-year anniversary of Korra's departure arrives, and it makes her feel so weak in the knees she decides not to go into work. She can't sleep **;** after hours of tossing in bed, she gets to her feet and goes down to her study. There's an exorbitantly expensive bottle of whiskey in the bottom drawer of her desk, imported from Empire Island and so vintage it could tell the story of the Hundred Year War. She takes a drink without bothering to find a glass first. 

There's something primal and satisfying about standing in the middle of her study in the pitch darkness, drinking aged whiskey out of the bottle—it feels right to be wrong, maybe. Eventually, she flicks on the desk lamp and sits down, reaching for a pen and parchment without consciously making the choice to. _Dear Korra_ , as all her letters start.

Then she stops. The same dilemma she's wrestled with for months comes over her once again. Should she just do it, rip the bandage off? _Dear Korra, I have feelings for you._ No, that's pushy. Too blunt. _I've been thinking about you a lot._ Too vague. 

Part of her—a manic part, admittedly—wants to give in and write the floweriest, sappiest love letter she can possibly write, something to put Jinora's trashy romance novels to shame, something to express all the little agonies of two long years without a beau. And maybe it's the whiskey talking, but she does exactly that **:** puts pen to page and lets out everything, not caring to edit or censor. She writes about Korra's hands, her eyes, her voice, the details that Asami fears she's beginning to forget. She writes about the last time they touched—a brief squeeze of the shoulder. Oh, if only she had known the years that were coming between them, strong and fast like that ship through the bay. A profound sense of regret washes over her, bone-deep.

She lights a fire in the fireplace and watches, cross-legged on the hard oak floor, the bottle between her knees, as the letter burns into smaller and smaller pieces, until there's nothing left at all.

* * *

The way the universe has been treating her recently, she supposes it should be no surprise that Korra writes back on one of Asami's worst days. 

The infrastructure project is in firing on all cylinders now, which means constant meetings, figures, calls, and a persistent thrum of unease through the halls of Future Industries. All day Asami is caught between the increasingly antsy board members, who're pushing to finish up before the end of the fiscal year, and the foremen of her factories, who're as overwhelmed as she is by the later stages of the project. Everywhere she turns, someone has a problem.

It's such a busy time that Asami forgets to check the mail in the morning. When she finally arrives back at the estate that night, nearly delirious with exhaustion, she half-heartedly checks the mailbox at the end of the driveway and thinks that she might be hallucinating. A letter with a wax Water Tribe seal sits neatly in front of her. It's not until she puts her shaking hand out and touches it that she inhales again—how long was she holding her breath?—and realizes it's wonderfully real. 

An excitement she hasn't felt in months (years?) overtakes her. She tucks the letter in her inside pocket, over her heart, and hurries upstairs to her study, locking the door behind her. Still trembling slightly, she takes a letter opener in hand and sits on the edge of the desk, slicing the envelope open in one swipe. For the first time it occurs to her that this might not be from Korra at all—wouldn't it be a cruel joke of the cosmos to get her hopes up like that? But it's no trick. She knows that small, slanted handwriting as soon as she sees it, the letter falling open gracefully in her hands: _Dear Asami._

_I'm sorry I haven't written to you sooner but every time I've tried, I never knew what to say._

This makes her heart feel heavy and slow in her chest. She presses on. 

_The past two years have been the hardest of my life. Even though I can get around fine now, I still can't go into the Avatar State. I keep having visions of Zaheer and what happened that day. Katara thinks that all of this is in my head, so I've been meditating a lot, but sometimes I worry I'll never fully recover._

The word "recover" warps suddenly in her vision. Asami touches her cheek and notices that she's crying. The euphoria of getting a response subsides instantly, replaced by a sick worry. So her fears about Korra's condition weren't unfounded after all. She wishes desperately to be close to her in that moment.

 _Please don't tell Mako and Bolin I wrote to you and not them. I don't want to hurt their feelings, but it's easier to tell you about this stuff. I don't think they'd understand._

That's it. No sign-off, just her name, squeezed into the bottom right corner. A soft, unfamiliar feeling spreads through Asami when she rereads the line, _I wrote to you and not them_. Sensibly, she knows she shouldn't read into any of this, but already her mind is starting to go a mile a minute, ping-ponging between concern for Korra's health and the rush of happiness she gets from being her confidante. It's like the Ember Island whiskey **:** bitter on the front of her tongue, but warm in the pit of her chest.

* * *

_Dear Korra,_

_I'm sorry you're having a hard time. I understand why you didn't write, and I'm not upset with you._

_Is there anything I can do? How can I help? If you want some company, I'm still happy to come for a visit. Just say the word._

_I'm here for you no matter what._

_Yours always,_

_Asami._

A short letter, yes, but necessary. She can't say the other hundred thousand things she wants to say, not yet. Maybe never. As much as it hurts her, Asami knows that she'll be a friend and supporter for as long as Korra needs that, even if that's forever. For all the good fortune she's had in her life, she's not a selfish person. She can put her feelings aside for as long as it needs. She's done it before.

Even as brief as the letter is it goes through more drafts than her engineering sketches, till the waste bin by her desk is filled with crumpled pages and she goes through a brand new pen. She agonizes—how to express devotion without being overbearing? How to acknowledge a deep feeling of love without overstepping boundaries? This is how she comes to the final draft, a bare-bones account of all the thoughts running through her head as she writes. Hers always. No matter what.

* * *

The third year is a blur. As cliche as it sounds, Asami has no other way to describe it. Her days feel long and short at the same time **;** the final stages of Central City Station occupy her from dusk till dawn, but the whirl of activity makes the hours pass quickly, such that she often looks at the setting sun through her office window and is dully surprised to find that another day has come and gone. 

To her continued shock, Korra writes back again, and keeps writing. Each time, Asami can hardly believe it—two years of radio silence have made her slow to trust the envelopes appearing in her mailbox. But they're always true, addressed to her in that tilted scrawl she knows so well now. She saves them all. 

Korra's letters are varied, tumultuous. Sometimes they're just a few hastily-scribbled lines **:** _It's been a bad week. I haven't been sleeping. How are you?_ Other times they're longer, stream-of-conscious ramblings, so candid that Asami is deeply touched that she's even being trusted to read them. These are the letters that she saves until she's alone in her bedroom at night, because more often than not they make her weep, though she would never admit this.

* * *

_Dear Asami,_

_I keep thinking about the time I had amnesia, and I didn't know who I was. The past Avatars had to tell me._

_I feel like that all the time now. Everyone is telling me who I am—my parents, Katara, the White Lotus, the world. Only this time, I don't believe them. I don't feel like that person. I don't know if I ever will._

_I don't know how to come back._

_Korra_

* * *

_Dear Korra,_

_If you aren't that person anymore, then who are you? Maybe you get to decide._

_Come back anyway._

_Yours always,_

_Asami._

* * *

Six months go by like this. All sorts of landmark moments come to pass in Asami's life—manufacturing is officially complete on the pieces for the new station, which means in just a few short months the project will finally, mercifully, be done. She reads some of the letters her father sends from Republic City's prison, and despite herself, her heart starts to soften. Every time she drives past the prison her eyes linger a little longer. Something is changing. 

Yet through all of this, it's her letters to and from the Southern Water Tribe that sit on the forefront of her mind. She spends most of her free time reading and re-reading every scrap of correspondence, trying desperately to suss out what Korra needs (though she's beginning to fear that whatever it is, she can't fulfill it). In all of her replies, she offers everything she can possibly give, maybe even more. 

And then, as suddenly as it all started, the letters stop. 

It's the dead of winter now. Asami goes to the mailbox every day, shivering, never caring to grab a coat first. Still no letters. She lets two weeks pass before letting herself worry **;** when a month goes by, the worry dulls at the edges. Mostly she's just crushed. A wreck. She doesn't go into the office for three days in a row. The hailstorm of calls she gets from the chairman of the board go unanswered. 

Stupid. She should have prepared herself for this—she went two years without so much as a postcard, after all. Best never to let your defenses down, an old, cynical part of her thinks. But she doesn't know if she has it in her anymore to be aloof, guarded. Every day without a response is a fresh hurt. She almost looks forward to it. 

She goes down to Kyoshi Bridge for the first time in months, well past midnight. Winter's wrapping up but it's still a little too cold for comfort. She leaves the top down on the car anyways. Her teeth chatter. The air on her cheeks feels knife-like **;** she isn't sure if her eyes are watering from the wind or if she's just crying. She shuts them. It doesn't matter. She pushes the car full-throttle, rockets down the empty road until the engine starts to shake from the strain and she's certain that she's made it the full length of the bridge, then lets her foot off the clutch and rolls to a stop. But when she opens her eyes again, she hasn't made it after all—the massive archway at the end of the bridge looms ahead, and she has never felt smaller, or more alone.

* * *

She gets through the days, one way or another. Sometimes this means indulging in elaborate fantasies, the things she wants to do but can't—like rigging up an airship, dropping every single one of her responsibilities, and taking an express trip to the South. Other times it's as simple as staying at work past the point of exhaustion, until, bleary-eyed and sluggish, she's too fatigued to be sad. It becomes a shamefully regular occurrence for her to fall asleep on the little sofa in the corner of her office, wake up early enough to go back to the estate to shower and change, and then come back to Future Industries to do it all again. 

Asami figures that this lifestyle isn't sustainable, but she doesn't have the will to look into the future anymore. More than anything she's tired, so she makes it from sun-up to sun-down every day and calls that a victory. She still checks the mailbox every night **;** all she finds are more letters from her father, to be added to the growing pile on the corner of her desk. Maddening, isn't it, to love someone from afar? 

* * *

"The grand opening for Central City Station is officially set for the tenth," her assistant informs her, checking something off on her notes. "It's going to be a fairly large event. The President wants you to do the honors of the ribbon-cutting." 

"Alright." Asami's barely listening. She turns her head to the side and regrets it instantly **;** her office has a gorgeous view of Avatar Korra Park, and though she can't see the statue from here, she pictures it nonetheless. 

Her assistant opens her mouth to add something but shuts it when the phone rings. Asami waves her away and answers it with all the enthusiasm she can muster (not much, frankly). "You've reached Asami Sato." 

"Asami, it's Mako. You busy?" 

"I'm always busy," she says, with a colorless laugh. She can't remember the last time she spoke to Mako—last autumn, maybe? No, that can't be right. "What's up?" 

"I wasn't sure if you'd heard the good news, so I wanted to tell you just to be safe." There's a din of other voices behind him. She wonders if he's back in the police station. "Tenzin just got a letter from Tonraq. He says he's coming to Republic City on the tenth. Beifong just told me." 

She's stunned, literally speechless, mind racing. "Does that mean—she's coming back?" 

"Looks that way. So I'll see you then, okay?" 

"Of course."

* * *

Funny how she was initially dreading the ribbon-cutting ceremony, sick of the fanfare and the photo-ops and the sour dealings with Republic City big-wigs, and now she's buzzing with anticipation from the moment she wakes the morning of the tenth. She gets up before dawn and spends a full hour picking out an outfit, something halfway between excitement and anxiety coursing through her all the while. Pabu watches her fretful trips around her bedroom with a curious expression. 

The morning drags on (it turns out that there are plenty of last-minute invoices to sign, hands to shake, and people to meet and immediately forget). The afternoon is even worse somehow—once she's situated at the top of the steps of the new Central City Station, posed between Raiko and Chief Beifong, the President's address to the crowd feels neverending. She looks at her watch twice before Lin gives her a _cut it out_ look.

Her only clue that the speech has finished is the sudden barrage of flashing cameras. Raiko turns, million-yuan smile plastered to his face, and hands Asami a pair of comically large scissors. She throws on a photo-ready smile of her own and cuts the ribbon in two. The bulbs flash again, twice as long now, and for a moment she can't see anything at all.

* * *

The dusk over Yue Bay is gorgeous. A sizeable welcome party gathers at the docks **:** Tenzin and his family, Lin, Mako, and to Asami's mild irritation, Prince Wu, Raiko, and his wife. The whole way there, Asami feels short of breath. A thousand little worries start to fight for the center of her attention. Should she have changed her outfit one more time? What should she say when they reunite? What _shouldn't_ she say? 

"Look!" Meelo squeals. He's climbed up on Mako's shoulders for a better view across the water (Mako looks less than thrilled).

Asami follows Meelo's wild pointing and sees the large Water Tribe ship pulling into the mouth of the bay, so similar to the one that took Korra away three years ago that Asami feels a disorienting pang of deja vu. She holds her breath without realizing it. After all these years, here she is again.

The ship lumbers to a stop next to them. The anchors drop. Moments later, the hatch in the side of the hull swings open, striking the dock with a curiously ominous sound. In a flash, Naga tears out of the opening, and to Asami's surprise, the polar bear dog runs straight to her and flops over on her back, tongue lolling out with so much joy that Asami can't help herself from bending forward and giving Naga a good scratch behind her ears. 

Then there's Tonraq, striding towards them with a smile. He's as broad-shouldered as ever, but Asami thinks he looks thinner than the last time she saw him. Perhaps the last three years have been even harder for him. He shakes Tenzin's hand and she swears there's a hint of weariness in his grin. 

Asami looks past him, a sinking feeling in her chest—a trickle at first, and then a waterfall of trepidation. Korra should have come off the ship by now, but no one else steps through the hatch. She thinks she knows what's about to happen.

"Tonraq. It's good to have you back in the city," Tenzin says, diplomatic as ever. "And everyone is excited to see the Avatar again."

There it is, the glaze of confusion over Tonraq's face. Asami feels her hands fall limp at her sides. "What do you mean? Isn't Korra already here?"

"No, we thought she was coming with you."

"Korra left the South Pole six months ago," Tonraq says slowly. _Six months,_ Asami thinks, despite herself. _That's when her letters stopped._ "She's written me letters. She said she was here in Republic City."

"I assure you, your daughter's not here." Tenzin sounds nearly as worried as she feels. 

"Then where is she?"

* * *

She doesn't care if she's overstepping. It's been three years. There's nothing left to do but take matters into her own hands.

"Tenzin," Asami calls, as the airbending master starts to shepherd his children in the direction of the ferry back to Air Temple Island. "Can I have a word?" 

He turns back to her, his face still a mask of concern, and gestures for Pema and the kids to go on ahead. "Yes, what do you need?" 

"We have to find her," Asami says. She knows that Tenzin is surprised by how earnest she sounds **;** she doesn't care. "I can give the Air Nation anything it needs. Future Industries airships, biplanes, whatever. I'll go if I have to." 

He studies her, pensive. She feels strangely exposed. "We will find her. I promise. But we need to have a plan first. I'll call you when it's time." 

This does little to comfort her. He walks away to rejoin his family. She takes a look around and realizes that everyone else has already gone back into the city. Once again, she's the last one standing.

* * *

For the first time in years, Asami has free time, and she absolutely loathes it. 

She starts spending more and more time on Air Temple Island. It's one of the only places in the city that can calm her now **;** maybe it's the tranquil simplicity of the Air Acolytes making their rounds across the island, or all the love bursting from the seams of Tenzin's family, but she feels most at peace there. She has lunch with Pema some afternoons. On days when Pema needs a break, Asami watches Rohan for her, and although she's never considered herself to be very good with children, she enjoys the responsibility. They play hide-and-seek in the temple's courtyard.

These days the island is quieter than normal. In light of Kuvira's startling declaration at the botched coronation ceremony, Tenzin's older children depart on a mission to retrieve the Avatar (Asami doesn't attempt to hide her skepticism about this plan when Tenzin tells her, but he assures her that they're more than up to the task). 

When she's on the island Naga follows her everywhere, a forlorn look in her large black eyes as if she knows that Asami shares her pain. Asami remembers hearing something about how animals are excellent readers of emotion, far more intuitive than humans. Maybe Naga's got her all figured out. She asks her this one afternoon, alone by the spinning gates, Asami leaning against Naga's warm side as she's seen Korra do so many times. Naga just sighs in response. Asami takes that as a yes.

* * *

Her luck might be turning.

She's on the island for afternoon tea with Tenzin and Pema, who have grown to enjoy her company as much as she's grown to enjoy theirs. They're debating responses to the developing Earth Empire situation when an Air Acolyte appears in the doorway, bowing respectfully. "Apologies for interrupting, Master Tenzin. We've just received a radio transmission from Master Jinora." 

"What did she say?" Tenzin asks. Both he and Asami visibly straighten up with anticipation. 

"They've found the Avatar," the acolyte says. "And they're coming home."

* * *

Mako makes all the arrangements. Lunch at Kwong's, just the three of them.

Asami arrives far too early, convinced that she should leave ahead of schedule just in case there's traffic or an emergency or a meteor strike (this is a real possibility, given all the crazy things she's seen over the past four years). She ends up alone in the parlor of the restaurant, a ball of nerves, and pretends to read a magazine, which she thinks will make her look cool and aloof—the opposite of how she feels, obviously. 

She hears the door swing open, a light footstep in her direction. Then—"I hope you haven't been waiting long." 

Korra smiles, a little sheepish, and instantly, all of the anxiety melts away, the fear that something was broken between them forever, the million and one nightmare scenarios that Asami thought up in her absence. She might look different, but the feeling is the same as it was all those moons ago on the dock at Yue Bay. Asami smiles back at her. It feels as natural as breathing. 

"Only three years," she says. She wraps her arms around Korra, who's warm and soft and _there_ , just as she's dreamed about doing every day for months, and it's the truth. Three years is nothing at all, for this.

**Author's Note:**

> this meeting of the asami sato fanclub is officially adjourned :)


End file.
